Main navigation

Dehydrating Vegetables Recipes

The cool and damp days of Autumn are setting in across Southern Ontario. Days are getting shorter, blankets are getting thicker and food is getting warmer. It’s a lovely time of year which was recently made better when we went out for bowls of Ramen (a Japanese noodle soup originally made popular in North America by over-salted instant disposable bowls of instant soup then further fetishized by restaurants such as Momofuko) which were accompanied with crispy dried garlic chunks.

I’m a fan of shaking things onto food. Dried chilies, parmesan cheese, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and other less-common flavours from our pantry (dried mushroom and dehydrated beet powders are flung about our kitchen with reckless abandon). I’m a condiment guy through and through and the discovery of this golden crunchy condiment was an utter revelation. It added crunch, sweetness, a slight burn and the unmistakable appeal of garlic. To keep it crunchy I resorted to shaking a small bit on each clump of noodles that I pulled from the soup with only the slightest notable uncertainty gripping the noodles between chopsticks.

I had to try to make it. Crispy dried garlic had to be in my kitchen.

I came home and peeled a lot of garlic (not as much as when I peeled 30 pounds of garlic a few yeas ago but a lot by my standards today). Once it was chopped, I slowly fried it in copious amounts of butter before tossing it in the dehydrated overnight. What came out the other side was near perfection – crispy pieces of dried garlic as good (or better) than the commercial product that lit my imagination.

If you have a dehydrator this recipe is a snap!

A few notes on on making Crispy Dried Garlic

If you aren’t discerning about your source of garlic this could be an ideal recipe to use the mass trays of pre-peeled garlic (but don’t use pre-chopped).

You can speed up chopping by using a food processor. If you have a high speed blender you can wet chop the garlic (this technique is my preferred way to make relish-sized chunks that are perfect for this).

Because you are dehydrating butter you may wish to store this one in the fridge – candidly I have made it and kept it on the counter for more than a month though I’m not sure it will usually last that long around these parts..

Crispy Dried Garlic - an awesome condiment that can be served to garnish food such as soup, pasta, roasted vegetables or anything that you'd use garlic for.

Author: Joel MacCharles

Recipe type: Dehydration

Cuisine: Preserving

Serves: 1 cup

Ingredients

2 pounds garlic

¼ cup butter

Instructions

Chop the garlic fine (see notes for speedy ways to do this)

Melt the butter in a wide saucepan over medium heat.

Add garlic to the butter, slowly cook until browned and most of the butter has been reduced and absorbed by the garlic (about 10 minutes)

Spread garlic on dehydrating trays. Dry at 135 degrees (assuming you have a temperature setting) stirring after the first 3 or 4 hours to help prevent clumping (if clumping happens it can easily be broken apart after).

The garlic is done after 8-10 hours. To test the garlic for complete dryness remove a small piece from the dehydrator and place a piece on a plate to cool to room temperature for 10 minutes. Bite the piece and it should be brittle and dry throughout.

When I wrote about nose-to-tail vegetables the other day, I was most excited to share this article with you (the photos were taken over a week ago). Green onions are the epitome of this concept – although they are a singe vegetable, there are up to four unique parts which each can be used very differently in cooking and preserving. From the bottom up:

The dehydrator was out and we had a counter full of onions and carrots. I almost passed them by justifying that they were one of few foods I can buy local and fresh (though not nearly as good as the moment they come from the ground) throughout the year. I also associate them with the hard chunks I have received in homemade instant soup recipes – the kind that you add water, an oxo cube and transform a jar of pebbles into nourishment.

Then again, the carrots and onions were there. I have eaten dehydrated versions of them my entire life (not in great quantity, mind you) and I like the idea of learning more about what you eat by cooking it at least once (something I`ve wanted to extend to the world of cheese for some time).

When we adopted Shaeffer I thought that we were bringing a dog into our home. Although that was true, it didn’t take long to figure out that we had actually adopted a stomach with legs. He’s cute and all but the boy can eat – we had to find a way to make homemade dog treats or risk getting eaten out of house and home!

If you have a dehydrator, these are super easy to make, nutritious and are great with a beer! They can be as hot as you want but don’t be afraid to use a LOT of wasabi; once everything dries, a large amount goes a little way. We made a giant bowl (4 or 5 massive yams) of these and used an entire jar of wasabi and the heat was barely there!